


The Importance of Thinking Happy Thoughts

by selkieskin



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bullying, Caring, Conflict Resolution, Crying, Emotional, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fatherhood, First Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Homophobic Language, Jealousy, Light Angst, Period Typical Attitudes, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 12:59:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12984585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selkieskin/pseuds/selkieskin
Summary: Eleven didn't want to be angry any more. So when she was alone in the cabin during the day and she tried to use her powers using an emotion other than anger, she just kept on thinking of how much attention Mike was paying to Will, not her, and anger kept welling up anyway.Hopper comes home and talks her through it, and explains why Mike might be looking after Will more these days. A slice-of-life, one evening in the Hopper household.





	The Importance of Thinking Happy Thoughts

Eleven pushed and pushed, but the chair wouldn't budge. _Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts..._

__

__

_Mike._ The chair rocked slightly, so slightly, and then her mind was flooded with not just Mike, but his hand in Will's hair the other day, them on the couch together and her on the floor. The anger twisted within her and the chair rocketed away from her, smacking into a tree and breaking. She stared after it, eyes burning but defiantly not letting her disappointment out. She turned back to the house to drag out something else.

She tried again. Same result. And again, and again, and again. By the time Hopper's car started to come through the trees, she was limp from exhaustion, surrounded by things from the house, some of them broken. Some of the blood had dried on her face and started to crust.

“Hey there, kiddo,” he said. “What happened?”

And then, she couldn't help it. She started to cry uncontrollably, and Hopper was there, and he held her, stroking her hair and shushing and asking.

 

After she'd calmed down enough for him to bring her inside – he wished he could just sweep her up in his arms the way he used to, but she was a growing girl and those Eggos were clearly working their magic, so she was heavier than she used to be – he sat her down at the table, got her to wipe her nose, brought a blanket to drape over her shoulders and some juice, and settled down opposite her and just watched her for a minute.

“You feel a bit better now that you've let it out?” he asked. She shrugged miserably. Hopper sighed. “Well, OK. But sometimes talking about it really helps, you know that, right?” No response. Hopper nudged her leg under the table with his foot. “Hey. Talk to me. What happened that's got you so upset?”

El's mouth twisted like she might start crying again, and she took a sip of her juice to quash it. She looked out the window, then back at Hopper.

“I... I... tried to see if it would work... if I wasn't... angry.” She was clearly fighting with herself to stay calm, and she took another sip of her juice. She often did this when she was upset. She either got angry, or she cried and then tried to hide it. She sighed deeply. “I didn't want to be angry any more.”

Hopper's heart went out to her. She'd talked before about that being how she was raised – being angry was good because it gave her access to her powers. All other emotions were discouraged unless it served their purpose. It was hard to overcome years and years of that sort of abuse and neglect, but she was really trying.

“And, let me guess, it didn't work?” She stayed quiet and took another sip. “Is it something... that you think could work?”

Another long pause. “I don't know. It doesn't matter anyway. I can't do it.”

“You can't do it? Kid, you can do anything you set your mind to. Why doesn't it matter? Why can't you do it?”

“I... don't think...” her face twisted again, and tears started coming down her cheeks. She sobbed. “I don't think I've got enough happy thoughts.”

Hopper got up and came round the table to cradle her against him. She cried again, clinging to his shirt.

“I know, kid, I know. Hey, hey, c'mere. We're working on that, right? Hey...”

He held her close to him until she'd started to calm down again. He didn't know what to do when she felt like this, he felt so helpless. He just had to ride this wave with her, and figure out if there was something he could do to fix it.

She still had a long time yet to lie low. He knew it didn't do her any good, being cooped up like this. Her friends still came to see her some days after school, and he came and saw her after work, but all day she was stuck out here going over everything with nobody to lead her out of her head. It wasn't healthy. This wasn't the first time he'd come back to find her agitated, or upset, or angry after having worked herself up over something alone all day. It was the worst she'd been recently – seeing her friends and Mike really did help, but they couldn't make everything that had built up over her whole life go away. She was a troubled little girl, and all Hopper could do was be there for her and hope that it helped a little.

When she was wound down enough to speak again, he stroked her hair gently and crouched down so that he was level with her face. 

“Now, do you wanna talk more, or do you wanna do something else?” he asked.

“Some-something else,” she hiccuped.

“Well, alright,” he said, deciding on what he could do to cheer her up – make some happy memories instead of things like this, that were only making it worse. “How about this for a plan – I heat up dinner, then we bring our blankets in and watch your _Wizard of Oz_ video on the sofa, eating a _triple_ Eggo-ice-cream-sandwich extravanganza using the whole rest of the tub of ice cream. Sound like a plan to you?”

She nodded. He smiled at her, and squeezed her knee.

“Come on then.”

 

The credits rolled, and Hopper stretched, having started to doze off in the last part of the movie. He knew that El didn't have many videos of her own – the VHS player was a recent addition to the house – so the ones that she had were watched a hundred times, probably more when he was out all day. He'd certainly seen more than his fair share of this one, but she still liked it, and that was what mattered.

He got up with a groan to go and rewind the video before taking it out and El spoke again.

“I think it's me.”

“Hmm?” Hopper blinked sleepily, turning round. “What's you?”

“I've got... happy memories, and nice things. But I make them bad.”

“You make them bad? What do you mean?”

She shrugged, staring at the floor. “Dunno.”

“Oh no,” he teased gently. “Well, that doesn't sound quite true.” The video finished rewinding and he ejected it, got it back in its case and turned the TV off. Going back to the couch, he sat down and pulled the blankets back over his knees. He looked at her for a moment.

“How about you give me an example?” he suggested. “What were you thinking about earlier?”

“Mike.”

His eyebrows flew up. Mike? What had the boy done? His brow furrowed.

“Thinking about Mike was making you feel angry?”

“Yes.”

“What did he do? You need your old man Hopper to go and have a word with him?” He pretended to flex his muscles, earning a snort from El, which he was glad to hear. It meant she wasn't about to break down again any time soon.

“No, it's just... he's always looking after me. And Will. But it's not _fair_. I've had a harder time than Will, and I'm his girlfriend, so then... then... why doesn't he pay more attention to me?”

Now, Hopper knew that her emotional development was way behind where a kid of her age should be, but sometimes it took him by surprise how young she sounded. Sure, he'd been there when the whole gang were on the sofa and noticed that Mike split most of his extra attention between Eleven and Will – more Eleven than Will, from his position as an observer – but he'd always figured that was just because they were the two that he felt needed looking after most, the two that he'd almost lost. He thought it was sweet, and he was always hearing from Joyce about what a bad time Will was having at school, particularly at the moment. This competition that had built up in El's mind wasn't a good way to think of their dynamic, and if she kept on thinking this way, it was going to lead to her losing some of the good things she had around her. He thought for a moment about how to best approach the topic.

“Sounds to me like you might be a bit jealous. And that's perfectly normal, mind you,” he said, “but it's not a great way to go about thinking of it, especially in this situation. Hear me out,” he said, and he saw her starting to frown. He caught one of her feet under the covers and gave it a good squeeze.

“Now, I know this is your first boyfriend, and everyone's first relationship stirs up these same kind of jealous feelings. Hell, I remember Judy in the seventh grade – she was my first real crush, and I felt pretty similar to how I reckon you're feeling now. I wanted her all to myself, and if I saw her talking to other guys, or having fun with anyone who wasn't me, I hated it. I wanted her to be with me all the time. Sound familiar?”

El gave a slow nod, eyes wide, listening.

“OK. So I tried to make it that way. I told her I didn't want her speaking to her guy friends. I would get mad every time she did. And do you know what happened?” She shook her head. “She ditched me after about a week. And good! I was trying to stop her doing things that made her happy, just to make myself feel better. And it didn't work. So good riddance to me. It hurt like hell, but it taught me a valuable lesson.”

“So... what do I do?” she asked, plaintively.

“Well, first off, you've got to try and understand Mike's perspective. His thing is that he likes to look after people, right? Your Mike just cares so much about you, and he cares about all his friends, too. That's one of the great things about him, right?”

She nodded reluctantly.

“So then, your job as his girlfriend is to let him be the best way he can be, and support him doing the things that make him happy, same as he has to with you. Trying to stop him doing what he wants to do... that's a dangerous path to go down – I know that much." He wrinkled his nose as he remembered Mike finding out that he'd been keeping the girl from him. "Listen, I get that you're feeling neglected, and yeah, you should talk to him about that, get him to spend a bit more time with you without any of your other friends there, but when you're all together? I'm sorry, kid, but you've probably got to accept that Mike's always going to feel protective of Will too.”

“But... I... but Mike and Will get to be there all day together at school. I'm just stuck here.”

“I know, kid. But that's one other thing. Look, I know you've had a really bad time of it, growing up, no one's denying that. A worse time than Will, I'd probably agree with you there. But there's different kinds of bad times, and Will... he's got it rough. Not just what happened to him in the past year or two with the Upside Down, though that's bad enough. Now, I don't know how much you guys actually talk about it, and I think they all get it one way or another sometimes, but I just want you to know that that kid needs to go into school every day and deal with people's shit – they do everything to him, and it's getting worse.”

“Mouthbreathers,” she said.

“Yeah, that's right. So cut him a little slack. He needs a friend right now.”

El licked her lips, thinking.

“What... what do they do?”

Hopper cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably. He knew what they called him. He didn't want to tell her anything the kid wasn't happy with him telling. But maybe she needed to know? How would she know what it meant otherwise?

“Now, I just hear this from his mom...” he pictured Joyce, alternately white-hot rage and helpless tears at the situation, “...and I don't think she's got the whole story either. But she's picked him up from school a few times and it looked like he'd probably been beaten up or something. Someone got to his books and drew bad words all over them, drew pictures. Same with his locker. Once he was wet through, and it wasn't raining, and he wouldn't tell her what happened. That kinda stuff.”

El blinked. 

“What were the bad words?”

“Um... 'Zombie Boy', that's one of 'em, because of how everybody thought he died, and then he didn't. But kids will pick on anything. They say a lot of stuff.”

“What else?”

Hopper winced. He'd been trying to avoid it, but she always had a way of getting to the heart of a situation – pretty impressive for someone who didn't speak much. She stared at him, that penetrating gaze, young and hungry for answers, hanging on his every word. He sighed.

“Right, I'll tell you – but don't tell him I told you, alright? This is just so you understand what's going on a little better.”

She nodded in agreement.

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

“Right,” he said. “Well, the bad words that they use... they're things like 'fag'. And 'queer'. 'Homo'. 'Gay'. 'Fairy'. Stuff like that. You know what any of that means?”

“Fairy?”

“It's not like on the TV, it's not those kind of fairies. It's... uh... well, a fairy is someone who is a boy that likes other boys the way boys should like girls. You see?”

She looked at him, trying to gauge why he was so uncomfortable. He tried to force himself to relax, knowing that she often looked to him for social cues, and not wanting to make her uncomfortable with it too. The influence of years of these words being used as insults was hard to shake off.

“And is that... bad?”

“Well... no,” he said, sounding unsure, when Joyce's angry face popped into his head. “No. No, it's not. But some people have a problem with it. And I'm not saying that Will is actually like that, mind you. But that's what people think of him, and that's – for school bullies – one of the worst things you can be.”

El kept looking at him.

“Did you understand everything I just said?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Well, good. And remember, don't tell Will I told you.”

“Hopper, if Will likes boys... does that mean... Will likes Mike?”

Hopper's first instinct was to say a flat-out 'no', but then he thought about it a little and realised... she might have something there. He pictured Will's face flushed with happiness during a playfight with Mike. The way Will got quiet and thoughtful when Mike was speaking. The way his smile when Mike and El were sitting together on the sofa was a little sad.

“Well... I don't know. And I don't know that him being a fairy is true, either. But even if that was true, I don't think you've got anything to be jealous of with Mike. You know why?” She stared at him. “Because that boy looks at you like you've hung the stars. Like he doesn't look at anybody else. Now, I don't like anyone else taking up all your attention either, but of all the boys in the world, he's not too shabby.”

“You're... jealous?” she teased.

“Hey! I did say it was normal, but I ain't going to stop you from seeing him any time soon, because it's what _you_ want to do, alright?” he said, leaning forward to grab onto her shoulder reassuringly. “And... even if, somehow, sometime way in the future, he decided he wanted to go with some other girl instead – don't think that's likely to happen, by the way – you'll always, always be number one to me.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back in the soft light. “...And I'm the Chief, so any ex-boyfriends of yours that cross my path better watch out.”

She laughed, and he ruffled her hair and leant back.

“Now, it's getting late, little lady. Pyjama time. Go on.”

She got up, and headed into her room, while Hopper carried the covers in, made her bed, then left while she changed.

He opened the fridge and looked at the beer. He closed the fridge again. Maybe after she'd gone to bed. Tonight had been really trying, but he felt like – for once – he might have actually handled the situation the best it could be handled and been able to give some good advice.

That didn't mean he wasn't still worried about her, though. The way she'd hung on his every word to hear about what was going on with Will was stuck in his mind. He knew she felt left out of everything that was happening to everybody at school, and needed to try and soak up everything she could from second-hand information. It meant that things, big things, got missed out because everybody else was dealing with it all the time while she was here alone in the cabin. He wished she could feel a little more involved, but it wasn't yet safe to let her go to school. And she was supposed to be learning from school books when she was on her own during the day, but without a teacher to either explain things to her or make her do it, she was years behind, so she might not even be in the same classes as her friends even when it did start. And even though he technically graduated, he was floored by how much he'd forgotten in the intervening years, how much he didn't understand that he couldn't explain to her. It was something that worried him more and more each day.

He spotted a small dollop of dried-up ice cream on the sofa. He'd told her to be careful not to spill it, but that never worked. Silently, he wet a cloth and went to scrub at it, wondering whether to bring it up or to cut her some slack for the night.

Then, he realised this spillage was on his side. Oops.

“You spilled your ice cream.”

Rumbled. He looked around to see her standing there in her nightdress. He chuckled to himself, raised his hands above his head and shrugged.

“Well, whaddayaknow, you caught me. Yeah, yeah, I know. You can tell me off if you want. You ready for bed?”

“Yeah.”

 

When he'd tucked her into bed and read her another chapter of her bedtime story, he reached to turn out the light, and then stopped.

“I'm glad you talk to me about what's bothering you,” he said. “It's important, you know? And any time you feel bad, you know I'm always here for you. That thing about trying to get happy memories, it'll come in time, it will. Because you try so hard. You work hard every day to try and make sense of this crazy world we live in – it's hard for all of us, even those of us who did grow up in it, believe me – and you've come so far, and you're a bit further every day. Remember that. I'm so proud of you, kid.”

She smiled, flushing with happiness. He smiled right back.

“Hopper,” she said back, fondly, not to ask him anything, but just to say it. Hopper always liked hearing her say his name like that. It sounded a little bit like she meant 'Dad'. Maybe that was wishful thinking on Hopper's part, but he didn't think so. He always tried not to make a big deal of it – he sort of worried that if he said it aloud he might jinx it. So he pushed down that wave of emotion and brushed past the subject instead.

“Right, but remember, here's the plan.” He started counting on his fingers. “One: you talk to Mike, and ask if he'll spend a bit more time with just the two of you, and two: you trust Mike to act how he needs to act for Will, and understand that it doesn't mean he loves you any less. Maybe you could even get involved – ask Mike if you can all plan to do something nice for Will, together? Does that sound like a nice idea?”

“Yeah,” she answered, pulling the covers up tighter around her, relaxing.

“Alright, good.” He stroked her hair, pulled the covers up a little more around her, and stood up. He looked at her for a few moments, feeling his love for this strange child twist inside of him. She looked back, unblinking.

“Goodnight, El,” he said, turning off the light.

“Goodnight, Hopper.”


End file.
